Chapter Text
The table was exactly as he'd left it.
Sighing, Damian plunked down three bare plates and a full one.
Chewing an apple morosely—and yes, you can chew an apple morosely—he faced the empty chairs and glared at them all the way through his meal. Vitriolically.
Figures. He ought to have seen this coming, but Demetrius lied too well and Damian too badly. Even Jeeves wasn't exempt from the family's joint disappearing act, and Damian wasn't aware Jeeves qualified as a Desmond.
Well, anyone qualified more than Damian. He was a ghost as far as they were concerned.
Unable to bear it any longer, Damian stalked around and shoved the empty chairs forward. For reasons unbeknownst to himself and the screaming void he called a brain, he threw the chair against the crested window.
As sanity recaptured his mind, he gawped at what was certainly not a chair-shaped tantrum in the glass. Thank God the dining hall was just above the garden, so the only casualties were the grass, his mother's petunias and possibly a pigeon.
Dammit. He was complicit in Negligent Ornithicide.
Damian almost slapped himself; this was all purely theoretical. He hadn't actually murdered a bird.
He shifted testily toward the window. He had certainly murdered his mother's rose patch; therefore his own murder was not far away.
Chalking this... meltdown up to drink or possibly drugs— despite consuming neither— he resigned himself to dreams and denial.
Neither obliged, the sneaky pests.
He realised, about half an hour in, that sleep had been swapped out for insomnia when he wasn't looking. The wind grumbled outside as if in agreement, and perhaps out of misplaced spite, a gust of frigid air blew over his cheek. When he finally closed his eyes, he envisioned the life of a pirate, sailing the seas on a rowdy boat, until the cold became unbearable.
Behind his closed lids, he caught the faintest flicker of light; he opened his eyes a crack.
Only to find another pair staring into them.
He screamed.
The other person screamed.
His head smacked the headboard with a sickening crack. Arms flailing, he tried to regain his balance, but only succeeded in knocking over the pocket watch on the nightstand.
He tumbled off the side of the bed.
Retrieving some semblance of lucidity, he fell silent, registering the stippled carpet under his palms. He straightened slowly, and rooted around the pit of dust bunnies and mouldy fabric. After groping more than a couple dead spiders, his hand closed around cool, cylindrical metal: a curtain rod.
The other person was still screaming.
Stealthily, he did his best imitation of a hermit crab, brandishing his makeshift weapon.
However, his foot caught on the loitering pocket watch, and Damian Desmond came crashing down, the curtain rod tumbling from his hand.
He might have shrieked. The curtain rod, only moments ago, had been pointed at the other person's neck. Damian was already dealing with one murder allegation today. He didn't need a second.
Nervously, his gaze inched toward the other person.
Huh.
He blinked, and he stared at the body in front of him. 'Why aren't you decapitated?' was not the best thing to ask anyone. Suspected assassin or not.
As his gaze tracked downwards, he saw the faintest tendrils of mist curling around the curtain rod.
Oh.
Oh no.
He opened his mouth, but he was beaten to it.
"Ghost!" the ghost cried.
Rattled, he jumped. Instinctively, his hands clenched around thin air. Oh dear curtain rod, you shall be missed.
There was no other course of action.
Feeling ridiculous, he cleared his throat. "Uh, you're the ghost?"
"No, you are," they retorted.
"No, you are."
"No, you are."
He may have stamped his feet— did one always feel this irritated in paranormal encounters? Damian assumed that no, he was just special.
He swiped his arm through the ghost's torso. Surely, this was self-explanatory?
The ghost lurched backwards, eyes narrowing.
Damian cursed, but was stopped dead by the affronted...no, embarrassed expression on their face.
Their voice rose. "Don't do that."
"Why?"
The ghost sniggered, though their cheeks brightened. "It's inappropriate."
"It is not! I didn't even touch you!"
"Is too." Smiling wide, their hand snaked along Damian's abdomen.
Damian shuddered: "St-STOP that!"
"Why?"
Damian spluttered, face burning a furious crimson as he stepped hastily back. "It's not... it's completely inappropriate!"
"But I'm not touching you," they mimicked, fingers hovering a millimetre from his chest.
Squawking, he pushed away from the bed and gathered up his shirt, his books, and the various paraphernalia required for what he had intended to be a decidedly ghost-free day.
However, the ghost drifted with him, amber from the wall sconces tracing their features from the dark.
Damian turned to complain, but the insults faltered on his tongue.
The light turned sharp, bleeding into her skin, revealing a face far younger than the universe would have admitted, frozen with smile lines, dimples and the same stubborn tilt to her chin that he saw on his own.
The glow danced along her collarbone, unfurling around her like a rose, turning her hair an even more vibrant pink. It outlined a girl around his age, translucent edges folding over in paper corners, taking flight as origami shapes.
Focusing on the shit-eating grin curling on her lips, and the little step she took toward him, he shook himself. Her smirk suggested that she knew exactly what he was thinking.
He scrambled backwards, concentrating on his rising indignation. "Were you watching me sleep?"
The girl snorted, but then apparently thought better of it. She sunk into his office chair, rapping the mahogany desk.
Wait, she could touch things now? Damian opened his mouth to ask this desperately important question, but she cut him off—"I wasn't watching you sleep."
Still unsure of how he got in this position, he blustered: "What were you doing then?"
She spun around, the chair screeching. Undeterred, she leaned forward, locking eyes with him.
He tracked the blur of hands shifting: drumming on the desk, tapping on chin, and finally, arm making an arc through the air, finger halting at his torso.
"I'm Anya!" she declared, eyes bright and smile luminescent. "And you're in grave danger!"